Parker, John Henry: The archaeology of Rome (1,text): I. The primitive fortifications (Oxford [u.a.], 1874)

PREFACE.

V

clearly than anywhere else the plan of these old fortifications (in
the garden or vineyard of Prince Torlonia, near S. Prisca). We
there see that the cliff has been scarped to the depth of fifty or
sixty feet, and a terrace made on a ledge in the rock at the foot
of this escarpment; and on this ledge we see further that the wall
stands : that this wall is built in part of the great blocks of tufa, cut
away from the surface of the cliff in the process of scarping it, and
that other parts of similar blocks of a slightly different colour have
been brought from a quarry in the same hill, very near to the spot;
stones of a ton weight each are not easily brought from a distance,
We notice that the wall, in its original state, was twelve feet thick,
formed entirely of these large blocks, and that, in another part, it
has been altered to introduce small arches, perhaps for catapults;
that in this part the back of the wall is a mass of concrete faced
only with the great blocks of tufa, and that the arches have been
made in this outer facing, but these are evidently introduced at
a subsequent period, though still an early one. We observe also
that at the foot of this great wall was a trench, afterwards filled
up, and deep pits made in it in the time of Trajan, connected with
the thermce of his cousin Sura.
This fortress is at the north-west angle of a gorge in the hill,
at the narrow end of which was a gate, where four roads meet.
On the opposite, or south angle of this gorge, are remains of an-
other ancient fort, of which we have only the concrete mass of
the wall; but at the foot of it we found, by excavations made
in 1871, remains of the facing of large blocks of tufa, as on the
other side. This second fort is under S. Sabba, on the Pseudo-
Aventine, and that part of the hill appears to have been the arx or
citadel of the Aventine when it was a separate fortress. The tufa
wall remains at the other end of it under S. Balbina, still visible on
the eastern side, as it was also on the northern side (when a photo-
graph was obtained of it in 1868), before Signor Rosa had buried
it in the earth that he brought from the Palatine and threw there.
The church and monastery of S. Balbina is on the site of another
ancient fort, of which the tufa walls could be seen on three sides
of it, on the east and the north, as mentioned, and on the west also,
where it has been excavated ; on the south side, the trench has
been filled up.
This ancient fort (now S. Balbina) is opposite to another on the
Ccelian, in which the Villa Mattei or Coelimontana has been built.
These two ancient forts were used by Servius Tullius to protect the
Porta Capena in his short agger across the valley, from the cliff